First WP 7 Mango Handsets, to Compete Against iPhone 5

WP 7 Mango retailers are said to roll out their handsets in September, in order to challenge Apple's iPhone 5.

Sources told DigiTimes that handset sellers are planning to release their Windows Phone 7 Mango devices in September. This launch is presumably set to challenge Apple’s iPhone 5, which is rumored for a second week of September release. ACER, ZTE, and Fujitsu-Toshiba also announced their WP7 Mango handsets that are expected to arrive this fall. Moreover, HTC is also reported to roll out “a number of Mango phones, powered by Qualcomm 1.5GHz single-core CPUs with display sizes ranging from 3.8- to 4.7-inch.”

Meanwhile, Nokia is said to unveil their first set of Windows Phone 7 Mango devices at the Nokia World 2011 in October. Sources implied that the Finnish mobile phone maker plans to release their devices “at a time when fellow vendors have already heated up the market for Mango phones.”

Stephen Elop, Nokia’s CEO, said in June that he has “increased confidence” that the company will release its first set of Windows Phone 7 mobile phones later this year. Then the company will start to ship by volume in 2012.

Mango’s notable additions to Windows Phone 7 are the following:

- Conversation View for emails

- Threaded conversations to bring text, IMs and Facebook chat together into one conversation

- App multitasking

- Internet Explorer 9, with support for new HTML 5 web sites.

Though the latest data from Nielsen indicates that Microsoft only holds 9% of the US smartphone OS market share, the company is betting that their partners will provide the needed momentum to compete against iPhone and Android when Mango hits the shelves this fall.